Jeremy Deller sits in the cafe that formed part of his Joy in People exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

Given how much of Jeremy Deller's work is all about the happening and the being there, a mid-career retrospective at London's Hayward gallery was never going to be easy. It could so easily have been a misguided adventure but was, instead, one of the most enjoyable art shows of the year.

Jeremy Deller's Joy in People exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

He won the Turner prize in 2004 for an exhibition that featured his work Memory Bucket, a documentary about George W Bush's home town Crawford, Texas.

Deller once told the Guardian: "I work because I'm interested in other people. I'm nosy." So his exhibition at the Hayward was appropriately titled Joy in People.

It helps, on a personal level, that there's probably nothing Jeremy Deller is interested in that I'm not interested in. Drinking tea in a northern market reminds me of my childhood. As does Saturday afternoon wrestling with its absurdly overweight men in trunks and leotards and glam rock wrestlers like Adrian Street, whom Deller features in a documentary.

The exhibition seemed to work on every level – the big banner at the back of the Hayward, declaring Life Is to Blame for Everything; his section called My Failures, which featured the things that didn't quite come off for him; the bombed-out car he brought from Iraq and proposed as a piece of art for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.

Jeremy Deller photographed in his piece Open Bedroom (1993), at the Hayward Gallery, London. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

There is something brilliant about the eclecticism of Deller and the show captured that – it was funny and completely absorbing. For an artist who has for so long avoided exhibiting in a galleries, having such a major gallery show should not have worked, but thank goodness it did. It will be fascinating to see what he does next year in the British pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

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